


Believe/Want

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "The Guardians are pitted against a new enemy, one who is not Pitch, and - well, getting pwned. Badly.At which point in time, Pitch appears (Riding a Nightmare, preferably, because there are some gorgeous pics of him doing that), and proceeds to save the day. And is utterly bad-ass.Bonus if he still mocks the Guardians incessantly in the process."The enemy is…ADULTS! AHHH! Okay, but seriously, I think that for the Guardians, anything supernatural would be something they could deal with as well as Pitch. But what about people that want more than they want to believe? Got to show them there’s a lot of stuff they don’t want on the other side of reality.





	Believe/Want

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr 5/5/2014.

They wanted to believe, but more than they believed, they wanted. They took the memories that should have warmed their hearts and used them to light forges to build strange new weapons, strange new cages. And with the fervent foolish hope of every child ordering x-ray glasses from the back of a magazine, they learned to see. With only a little belief, but want beyond imagining, they saw what, they saw  _who_  they wanted to see, and they saw them real.   
  
And they took the real ones they found and put them in cages, for that was how all the stories they had read as children went. There was something wrong in this, and they knew this deep in their hearts. But they had never seen people so tall, so old, so pale and unremarkable, be the ones to grant freedom to the fantastic.   
  
And in any case, they wanted so so badly the things they had lost (naturally, naturally, the losing just as natural as the wanting). But hadn’t they always been told that they should have the things they wanted?  
  
***  
  
“They don’t believe. They know,” Bunny said in Pookan, so the guards couldn’t understand. The others weren’t able to respond in the same language—their teeth weren’t right for it—but they could understand it at least, and he saw North and Tooth nodding from their cells. He could only assume Sandy and Jack did the same, but he couldn’t see them from where he was imprisoned. “Whatever we do, it only gives them more knowledge of us, and that’s what they’re keeping us trapped for, and that’s what allows them to keep us trapped.”  
  
Though it hurt her throat, Tooth pitched her voice too high for human hearing, to a frequency only Bunny and her fairies could understand, to reply. “I asked them about the children, the last time I got a chance to speak with one of the doctors. He didn’t care. It’s strange. I don’t think they’ve realized that they’re supposed to stop being children.”  
  
Bunny nodded, and translated for the others.   
  
North nodded, and replied in Russian—a riskier option, as a human language, but little could make their situation worse. “Surely there must be something these ‘children’ do not want to know? Something they do not want to believe in?” A pause. “Maybe you are right, Sandy, but how…”  
  
“What do you mean, how?” Jack said, heedless of the guards. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty afraid—”  
  
 _That you’ll never escape, of course. It feels much better when it’s coming from you rather than myself._  
  
The lights flickered up and down the hallway, and a sound almost of horses’ hooves—almost—filled the aggressively bare space.  
  
 _Now, what was that doctor’s favorite quote? Something about more things in heaven and on earth…I think he’s forgotten that it was uttered by someone who’d just seen a ghost._  
  
Pitch rode slowly down the hallway, nodding sardonically to each captive Guardian. The human guards clutched their weapons tighter, clearly not seeing him, but just as clearly knowing that  _something_  was in the hall with them. Pitch stopped just beyond Bunny’s cell, his calm expression breaking.   
  
“No!” Bunny shouted as ropes of black sand shot from his hands. “Not here, you selfish bastard!” His words were lost in the deafening clang of the bars of Sandy’s cell being torn to pieces—to the guards, apparently with no explanation. Two of them turned and ran, shouting for backup.  
  
Pitch gathered the black sand to himself and turned an exasperated expression towards Bunny. “Not here what?”  
  
Sandy floated out next to him, signing rapidly, a look of intense concentration on his face.  
  
Pitch looked to him and raised an eyebrow. “You want them all to live? Well, of course you do. It’s the same mercy you offer to everyone. But you do know what that will mean?”  
  
Sandy looked slowly around at his imprisoned friends, then back to Pitch. The signs above his head dissolved and he nodded slowly, once.  
  
Pitch grinned with more teeth than any of them had ever seen him grin before.   
  
“Then I trust you’ll explain it to the others? I have much business to attend to.”


End file.
